BHX/MAN
 

Anyone have an idea re the potential cull of flights early October onwards from BHX & MAN?

BHX - TFS, ALC & AGP all gone by the first week in October except for a few peak dates, Barcelona is weekly for most of October at least but stops briefly in the New Year. Orly continues at the moment.

Manchester - TFS and FCO the same gone by October.

Seems a bit drastic but intense competition of course at both.

EDI-FCO also appears to be gone too, and of course a few routes culled this summer like EDI-ORY, LPL-BCN, NCL-BCN, LBA-BCN and the non starter AMS-MAN.

Seems Vueling couldn't quite break into the UK market as expected, probably not helped by some horrendous OTP issues (there were 2 occasions I travelled through MAN T3 at around 9am to see the previous nights Vueling flight (to ALC and TFS) delayed by over 18 hours).

No surprises with ALC and TFS from MAN. Passenger figures have been very hit and miss. Intense competition for these routes combined with very poor punctuality and Vuelings lack of general awareness amongst the U.K public didn't help either. FCO I'd of thought would of survived with VY slowly building a hub in FCO but most likely fell prey to the more established competition of FR/Jet2 offering much better frequencies.

with Level being pushed at BCN, I wonder why thats not being expanded rather than reduced. But yes too much competition on routes with an airline that noones heard of. That might be my worry with Blue Air at LPL too.

Aer Lingus is the perfect solution for IAG low cost offer for the UK

Aer Lingus tried it at Gatwick a few years ago, didn't work.

True, but that was pre IAG in fairness. They'd be fed by BA if they went again, but unlikely all the same.

Do IAG (namely BA) really want VY to be a strong LCC in UK beside FR, EZY, LS or do BA want to capture the holiday market by their own along with BA Cityflyer?

If UK-Spain, which is a big and important market, does not work for VY what other markets they are looking for (with their fleet of more than 100 aircrafts)?
FR, EZY and others fly across Europe and not only in the UK or Spain. Competition is everywhere now.

Aside from brand awareness and OTP issues, the schedules for many of these routes was so random, VY simply wasn't competitive. If you're only offering 1-2 return flights a week you're limiting your market considerably.

UK-Spain market analysis
UK-Spain market saw biggest growth in over 20 years in 2016

If the OTP is not good. Try the website. It is the worst website to book a ticket, print a boarding card. The English used must be the Spanish version more like Spanlish. We use them for LGW-RNS as to the wider family. Not just me but everyone else states the website is at best amateur but crap. Very hard work.

I've used their website for every journey with them and not found it a problem, although I've never printed a boarding card as I always fly with checked bags so get it printed at the desk.

I have wondered why BA/EI/IB and VY dont use the same website architecture. You would have thought that would make sense for IAG and lower costs...?

Was never going to work in the UK market. I'm still not even sure how to pronounce it and virtually no-one among Joe Public has ever heard of them.
Add in lousy punctuality and compare it to the several other well-known and frankly better brands....I'm surprised that IAG/BA ever thought that it could have possibly worked.....or does it say more about how little they understand the UK market outside of LHR....?

I'm sure all IAG airlines will move to a single booking engine in time.

All names taken, Well I think you're being very harsh. It's easy to pronounce as a Spanish word (vueling as in pueblo) and the product is very good, excellent in flight service, and no charity, scratch cards, spare currency insularity collections, etc. options on type of seat, network airline facilities, One World frequent traveller points, code share with BA and IB. Cabin crew are very friendly, it's a great experience for a LCC. Just wanted to give another viewpoint.

Travelled TFS MAN recently on Vueling. I found the website easy to navigate, and was very informative. The aircraft was immaculate, the cabin crew very presentable, and the flight arrived one hour early! This was no doubt due to a padded schedule and tailwinds. The only criticism was a poor choice of alcoholic drinks.
If Vueling produced a regular and consistent schedule to TFS they would be my airline of choice.

Since they're based in BCN, I had always assumed the word was Catalan....

And surely posters are ignoring the large number of Spanish people who visit the UK for work or pleasure? Aren't they a significant market for a Spanish/Catalan airline?

I think a word that UK passengers seem to pronounce in 3 different ways is always going to be a problem. I know that the management of IAG recognise the problem in the U.K. but decided to live with it because it works in Spain.

V is a B in Spanish. So it's Bueling.

Actually B and V are pronounced in a similar way in Spanish. It can be both Bueling and Vueling. I have struggled with Spanish for some time but I have still not seen a good explanation when it should be pronounced B and when it should be B....

According to my research, in some Catalan-speaking areas such as the Balearic islands, it's definitely pronounced v.

It's actually more of a "bw" sound as in bwuelling...probably the closest you will get as a non-native speaker!

You say tomato I say tomaato let's call the whole thing off........

It's as daft as calling a British airline 'Bough' and expecting it to be a success in the rest of Europe..... ie meaningless and unpronounceable to most people - just like Vueling.
The name of an airline is important to its success eg Easyjet

For the same reason Level is likely to stay level and fail to take off.

In standard Spanish in Spain, "b" and "v" are pronounced the same way, which is /b/. It is true that in some Catalan dialects they are pronounced differently, but Catalan is another language.

Wikipedia in English gives you the Spanish pronunciation: [ˈbwɛliŋ];

So there you go, problem solved.

English versions are numerous, but that is the official Spanish pronunciation.

I don't know whether it has been said already, but their name comes from Spanish "vuelo" (flight) and the English suffix -ing. Their marketing in the early years consisted in a mixture of Spanish and English words, later with other languages. That gave them a "fresh" look and attracted loads of young people. They had a cloud as a symbol as well. This all went with the merge with Clickair, which was a bit sad.

EDIT (answer to previous post): for most Spanish people, "Easyjet" is as unpronounceable as "Vueling" for British Speakers, mainly because they don't have some of the sounds, as the "j" (pronounced differently in Spanish). What about Lufthansa? Wizzair? British Airways? Monarch? the last two especially are hard work for some people in Spain.

I can't see that as a problem. The name is catchy. "Volotea" for instance must be surely harder to pronounce well for British people.

I shudder to think how they pronounce it in the Basque region, plenty of 'Ks' and Xs' I would suggest! Have great difficulty in getting my head round the Basque language but unbelievably friendly people.

Apologies for not searching through all the posts but for a relative of mine which has very recently invited to selections with Vueling could you shed some light on the Spanish requirements?

I hear that you should get the level 4 within 6 month now is that correct?

Regards/Gracias

IAG officially announced the acqusition of NIKI for a total of EUR 36.5 million.
The airline should be a subsidiary of Vueling with 15 A320-family aircraft including 740 employees and slots at VIE, DUS, MUC, PMI and ZRH.
IAG - International Airlines Group - Noticias

I thought Niki Fleet was mainly 321s

Flight has the following quote:

Random search produces BCALBOY as being basically correct at shutdown.

A320 family covers A319- A321

Of course...I just thought that rather than a cut & paste as an earlier posting above & noting another had taken the trouble to state his thoughts I considered I would be as specific too in this instance & state the operating fleet consisted mainly it appears of A321`s on shutdown.It perhaps does have a meaningful point as it reflects the greater capacity theoretically available to VY at handover.

So Either Vueling Absorbs Niki, Vueling Creates a New Austrian Subsidiary or Niki to come back into the Scene as a subsidiary of Vueling?

My understanding is it will be run on an Austrian AOC at least for the meantime as 'Vueling Austria', but I imagine branded as just 'Vueling'.

It will be good to see Vueling grow again but hopefully in a more substainable and sensible manner, Lufthansa’s low cost unit Eurowings is now a major force... would be good to see Vueling offer more flts from the UK, people in the Midlands and North along with Scotland have less to bordering no options with BA to earn and burn avios so this surely could be a market for IAG! Don’t just give it all to EZY, FR and LS.

Habana IAG will want to see revenues and returns in cash not simply avios redemption !

Don’t see this NIKI / VUELING benifiting the UK markets any time soon.

Still struggling to see the benifit to IAG in general in all honesty

IAG have pan-European aspirations for both Vueling and Level - so this would be a small step towards that.

IAG Printer Friendly Version - News Release

Good old Niki Lauda bought Niki.